


συναστρέω (Stardust)

by Katitty



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, GRACE FORCED ME OKAY SHE SAID I HAD TO WRITE WHAT I WAS THINKING ABOUT, I don't know how to tag this, It's background asmodeus, It's just kind of me projecting, Magnus is 90 percent sad, Sort Of, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-14 00:00:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14758778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katitty/pseuds/Katitty
Summary: Before the sunlight, the breeze, Magnus remembers deep deep darkness.συναστρέω (sunastreō): to be born under the same star





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Malec Trash Squad](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Malec+Trash+Squad).



> This is unbeta'd so PLEASE I BEG OF YOU POINT OUT ANY MISTAKES PLEASE I WON'T BE OFFENDED

Before the sunlight, the breeze, Magnus remembers deep deep darkness. A pain in his scattered being, below his unformed lungs, stretching and searching out through the darkness for something unreachable. A pain so powerful it crumpled the pieces of a nonexistent being so far into the universe they turned to blackness too.

 

And then?

 

Then there was love.

 

\---

 

His mother, first. Her eyes, the gentle rise and fall of her chest as he pressed himself against it. The softness of her laugh and the forgiving way she held him.

 

Taken, though, by the fear of something he could not yet see. Her own hands covered in her blood and then his hands, her blood.

 

Everywhere, her blood.

 

Pain and anger and fear of something he could not yet see, and then the first life ever taken by the cruel lash of his magic.

 

He misses the painful darkness.

 

\---

 

“Asmodeus.”

 

His hands were soft, his eyes golden and glowing like Magnus’s own.

 

That was all it took, just a name and a gentle pair of eyes. Magnus took an outstretched hand and suddenly the world fell into place just a little bit.

 

\---

 

“...and then, when the soul finally touches the dust of a star, it’s gifted to a child of the universe.”

 

“And you can see all of them happen?”

 

“Every single one.”

 

“Even me?”

 

“Even you, child.”

 

“So...when the dust of my star is touched by another soul...I’ll find my forever love?”

 

“Exactly.”

 

“Is there anyone who’s touched the same stardust as me?”

 

“Not yet, child. Not yet.”

 

\--

 

Etta.

 

He’d thought that he’d found what his dust had been searching for. The tug that had been drawn out, that had become almost excruciating. Perhaps he’d been close.

 

But he had not.

 

He hadn’t found anything except heartbreak and another man to love her. It felt real, though, and her not being the something that his soul craved did nothing to ease the pain of losing her.

 

\---

 

The dust that Magnus was born from ached in his veins. Pushed and pulled and sent waves of pain so powerful his magic lashed out against his own skin.

 

500 years and not one single being in all that time had touched the same stardust as his soul had. Not once, in all those years.

 

A rare star, his father had explained, buried deep in the edge of the farthest galaxy.

 

Magnus isn’t quite sure he believes the stories his father had fed him, but the dreams of darkness and the pain that still searches remain unquestionable. His core is searching for something. Magnus just isn’t so sure he’ll ever find it.

 

\---

 

It’s his eyes, he learns, that send people spiraling into fear filled bouts of extremity.

 

His mother, first, and then sweet Claudius. His strong arms and terrified eyes that pinned him against the wall once held gentleness and love.

 

Demon, he’d screamed. Kicked and thrown objects that shattered and dented in the direction of Magnus until all he could do was _run_.

 

He see’s now. His mother had thought so too.

 

\---

 

Camille with deep red lips and evil, evil eyes.

 

He pretends she’s got his stardust. Pretends the way she rolls her words off the tip of her tongue is the _thing_ that he’s been searching for. Pretends she eases his soul.

 

She’s not, though. She doesn't. But he's stupid enough to let himself believe. For so long he believes. Until she's so cruel and beautiful that he wills himself to walk back to the reaching pain, and he burns himself in the process.

 

\---

 

Others take the edge off, remove a piece of the pain for even just a little while.

 

It’s easy to touch and taste, feel and learn. To hold another and forget that incessant tugging of something lonely and strong that’s been embedded deep in his veins since before he could breathe.

 

Seventeen thousand, he counts (though he loses a few to drunken nights and memory spells), before he’s even 800.

 

They take the pain for a little while, though he gives up on looking after 800 years of emptiness. Gives up on fighting too.

 

\---

 

He’s spent too long alone, he thinks, despite the thousands.

 

He wants to tell himself that he’d been _with_ people, uncaring and free, at some point. But he hadn’t. Not really.

 

Never.

 

He’s powerful. Even without whatever his soul is searching for. He still commands and rules over entire city’s. Builds empires.

 

Hell, he’s even gone to war with the Shadowhunters a couple of times. It looks like he'll be going to war with them _again_.

 

All with the constant pain pulsing through his veins continuing its search for something that is never going to exist.

 

\---

 

September 12, 1989

 

That’s when it happens.

 

It’s early in the morning, still dark out. He’s in New York. Planning, brainstorming with other downworld leaders. Trying to find a way to make Valentine and his agenda just...stop.

 

Magnus isn’t sure what a good night's sleep feels like, not really. Not anymore. He probably never will.

 

His people are scattered about his lair. Some passed out on the floor of his living room, there are several children in his bed. The stronger warlocks are placed strategically on the roof of his building, holding up his wards while the others rest.

 

Magnus isn’t entirely sure he can do this anymore, he’s not positive he can be strong for _nothing_. He wants to crash. To fall into a deep sleep and stay there until his pain goes away.

 

Nobody else feels this pain, he’d learned that the hard way. Nobody else had been born from stars that sat on the edge of existence itself.

 

Everyone else came from common stars. Some are even visible in the night sky.

 

Nothing about it is fair. Most people are born with no pain, with no need to find something that doesn’t yet exist.

 

Their dust is already born. Their dust is scattered in souls by the _millions_.

 

Magnus is the only one.

 

It’s September 12, 1989.

 

Magnus Bane is in New York, on a balcony, hidden away in his lair. His people huddled into the building, planning, sleeping.

 

That’s when it happens.

 

He’s watching the stars, glaring at them really, cursing the dust that resides in the souls of the universe. Wishing, hoping - perhaps he’s praying- for someone, _something_ , out there to just...give in.

 

The sky _shakes_ and there’s an almost soft boom as something in the very distance above him shines bright and dangerous. And then it’s gone.

 

A bright white light that explodes in the deepest part of the night.

 

And then?

 

Nothing.

 

No shattering of space junk, no falling of the moon.

 

No pain in Magnus’s veins.

 

He’s no longer searching for _nothing_. He’s no longer searching at all.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not GREAT but I actually really like this little story so fight me about it I'll write what I WANT.

23 years of nothing. 

 

Magnus started to miss the pain not even 3 months in but alas, there was 23 years of empty nothingness. 

 

A war was kind of won, an agreement was made, a redheaded biscuit was born and Magnus had spent 23 years in painless misery.

 

At least when his veins were calling out for whatever it was, Magnus knew there was something. Now...now there’s nothing. 

 

He’d thought to contact his father, to ask and wish with all his might that he’d tell. Magnus had thrown him to hell, locked him in Edom and refused to look back, but for 23 years he considered reversing all that if only to know why he was empty after 800 years of burning veins.

 

But him being void of any longing paled in comparison to the idea of Asmodeus roaming Earth once more. 

 

So he theorized. 

 

Perhaps his star had died. After centuries of Magnus  _ begging  _ for it to stop, maybe it had. 

 

Or, if fate was on Magnus’s side, maybe the bright white light he’d seen was his star exploding, shattering and spreading it’s dust throughout the universe for Magnus to have soulmates littered among the others. But he found no one in all of those 23 years. 

 

They felt longer than the 800 had, though he didn’t realise it until he’d found  _ him _ .

 

\---

 

The pain was back in a new way. A thrumming in his veins that pounded and burned through every piece of him until his lungs almost gave out because it’d been 23 years of silence and now  _ this _ . 

 

It was all a rush. Everything sort of happened at once. 

 

Biscuit was there with Shadowhunters. An arrow flying past his head and then his lair was being destroyed. 

 

It was all a lot.

 

And then there was the handsome shadowhunter that’d come to save him. Alexander.

 

And then, after all that, Magnus noticed the familiar tugging just under his skin. He wasn’t sure where it came from, or why it was back, but he knew it had to mean something. And as soon as he noticed it, it burned brighter and stronger, pulsed under his skin and roar through his blood. 

 

He was almost happy for its return.

 

\---

 

A demon summoning never sounded fun to Magnus, but there he was. He’d rolled up his sleeves and thrown out words he knew meant nothing in his soul and even tried flirting with the pretty boy that’d saved his life but a few hours beforehand. 

 

And then they’d touched. 

 

They’d clasped their hands together and Alexander had held on tight as Magnus’s pain simply disappeared again before rearing back up mere moments later, pushing and tugging and begging Magnus to just let him get  _ closer  _ to the shadowhunter.

 

_ ‘Oh,’ _ Magnus thought.  _ ‘This one.’ _

 

And then he was chanting the incantation and begging begging begging Alec to never let go because the fire in his veins simply couldn’t handle that. He wouldn’t survive. 

 

\---

 

Alec had never spent a day in his life without another soul in existence not sharing his stardust. 

 

Maybe that’s why it was so easy for him to turn his back on Magnus. So easy to plan his life around a loveless marriage to a woman who’d already loved and lost one soulmate. To a woman who could so easily find another if she just  _ looked _ .

 

There was a moment. A mere second in time when Alexander had agreed to drinks. 

 

Magnus learned quickly that with every step closer to being something with Alexander, the less the reaching in his veins hurt. There was no need to search for relief in bodies or the bottom of a bottle. All he needed was a moment of joy with one certain shadowhunter.

 

One smile, a simple brush of a fingertip, and Magnus’s soul sighed in relief. 

 

Magnus didn’t think it was a lot to ask of the man, but Alec made it abundantly clear that Magnus’s advances were a burden his frail shoulders couldn’t bear to carry.

 

Magnus thought it unfair to insist that he be put under the stress of Magnus’s lonesome soul as well as everything else, but his veins called and cried out for just one more touch from the man. 

 

Just one more.

 

\---

 

There was fear of what would happen if Magnus  _ did  _ touch Alec again.

 

Would he ever be able to let go? Would to world stop turning just long enough for them to realise that the stardust in their veins wasn’t even a match. 

 

Was Magnus wrong in thinking that Alec felt the same way he did? 

 

How could Magnus ever be sure? He’d spent 800 years in pain, simply searching. And before that? Darkness. Deep darkness that bled into more darkness that pulled and tugged and searched for something that Magnus had only ever found in Alec. 

 

He had to be sure. There was no other explanation. 

 

\---

 

The need to remind himself that Alec hadn’t spent several lifetimes with a searching pain was overpowered by the need to not spend another lifetime without a soulmate.

 

How unfair of one pretty little shadowhunter. To think that he had any right to just...marry someone he’d never feel anything for. While Magnus was right there, waiting, as he had been for 800 years.

 

Fighting wasn’t an option. It was the only thing left to do.

 

\---

 

The sight, the glorious  _ glorious  _ sight of his stardust sharing shadowhunter marching down the aisle had his veins singing and the tugging pushing harder, pulling stronger, telling him to  _ run  _ and meet him halfway.

 

Magnus stood still. This was Alec’s choice. This had to be Alec’s choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This wasn't beta'd but guess what I trust you guys to tell me if there are any mistakes.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want a second part you should tell me tbh
> 
> Grace said 
> 
> DO IT  
> whatever it is  
> DO  
> IT  
> RIGHTNOW
> 
>  
> 
> So I did it. She also expected a 'happy healthy young Magnus' but here we are. 
> 
> I was thinking the other night when I was in the car, about how different everything is when you're in the car. especially when it's night and all around you is darkness and some lights. Everything about the world is just a little bit off. So here's the tea:
> 
> Reality feels altered when it's a dark night with no moon but the stars are bright and your mum's driving and you're not sure if you should watch the sky or the brake lights of the cars in front but you're being taken back to a memory from your childhood because Lovebug by the Jonas Brothers is playing and you can almost picture the black and white music video perfectly in your mind so you're not too bothered with looking at either.


End file.
